ODE FOR THE KEATS CENTENARY - Carl Sandburg Poems

The Muse is stern unto her favoured sons,Giving to some the keys of all the joyOf the green earth, but holding even that joyBack from their life;Bidding them feed on hope,A plant of bitter growth,Deep-rooted in the past;Truth, 'tis a doubtful artTo make Hope sweetenTime as it flows;For no man knowsUntil the very last,Whether it be a sovereign herb that he has eaten,Or his own heart.

O stern, implacable Muse,Giving to Keats so richly dowered,Only the thought that he should beAmong the English poets after death;Letting him fade with that expectancy,All powerless to unfold the future!What boots it that our age has snatched him freeFrom thy too harsh embrace,Has given his fame the certaintyOf comradeship with Shakespeare's?He lies aloneBeneath the frown of the old Roman stoneAnd the cold Roman violets;And not our wildest incantationOf his most sacred lines,Nor all the praise that setsTowards his pale grave,Like oceans towards the moon,Will move the Shadow with the pensive browTo break his dream,And give unto him nowOne word! --

When the young master reasonedThat our puissant EnglandReared her great poets by neglect,Trampling them down in the by-paths of LifeAnd fostering them with glory after death,Did any flame of triumph from his own fameFall swift upon his mind; the glowCast back upon the bleak and aching airBlown around his days -- ?Happily so!But he, whose soul was mighty as the soulOf Milton, who held the vision of the worldAs an irradiant orb self-filled with light,Who schooled his heart with passionate controlTo compass knowledge, to unravel the denseWeb of this tangled life, he would weigh slightAs thistledown blown from his most fairy fancyThat pale self-glory, against the mystery,The wonder of the various world, the powerOf "seeing great things in loneliness."Where bloodroot in the clearing dwellsAlong the edge of snow;Where, trembling all their trailing bells,The sensitive twinflowers blow;

Where, searching through the ferny breaks,The moose-fawns find the springs;Where the loon laughs and diving takesHer young beneath her wings;

Where, cleaving a mountain storm, the proudEagles, the clear sky won,Mount the thin air between the loudSlow thunder and the sun;

Where, to the high tarn tranced and stillNo eye has ever seen,Comes the first star its flame to chillIn the cool deeps of green; --Spirit of Keats, unfurl thy wings,Far from the toil and press,Teach us by these pure-hearted things,Beauty in loneliness.

Where, in the realm of thought, dwell thoseWho oft in pain and penuryWork in the void,Searching the infinite dark between the stars,The infinite little of the atom,Gathering the tears and terrors of this life,Distilling them to a medicine for the soul;(And hated for their thoughtDie for it calmly;For not their fears,Nor the cold scorn of men,Fright them who hold to truth:)They brood alone in the intense sereneAir of their passion,Until on some chill dawnBreaks the immortal form foreshadowed in their dream,And the distracted world and menAre no more what they were.Spirit of Keats, unfurl thy deathless wings,Far from the wayward toil, the vain excess,Teach us by such soul-haunting thingsBeauty in loneliness.

The minds of men grow numb, their vision narrows,The clogs of Empire and the dust of ages,The lust of power that fogs the fairest pages,Of the romance that eager life would write,These war on Beauty with their spears and arrows.But still is Beauty and of constant power;Even in the whirl of Time's most sordid hour,Banished from the great highways,Afflighted by the tramp of insolent feet,She hangs her garlands in the by-ways;Lissome and sweetBending her head to hearken and learnMelody shadowed with melody,Softer than shadow of sea-fern,In the green-shadowed sea:Then, nourished by quietude,And if the world's moodChange, she may returnEven lovelier than before. --

The white reflection in the mountain lakeFalls from the white streamSilent in the high distance;The mirrored mountains guardThe profile of the goddess of the height,Floating in water with a curve of crystal light;When the air, envious of the loveliness,Rushes downward to surprise,Confusion plays in the contact,The picture is overdrawnWith ardent ripples,But when the breeze, warned of intrusion,Draws breathless upward in flight,The vision reassembles in tranquillity,Reforming with a gesture of delight,Reborn with the rebirth of calm.

Spirit of Keats, lend us thy voice,Breaking like surge in some enchanted caveOn a dream-sea-coast,To summon Beauty to her desolate world.For Beauty has taken refuge from our lifeThat grew too loud and wounding;Beauty withdraws beyond the bitter strife,Beauty is gone, (Oh where?)To dwell within a precinct of pure airWhere moments turn to months of solitude;To live on roots of fern and tips of fern,On tender berries flushed with the earth's blood.Beauty shall stain her feet with mossAnd dye her cheek with deep nut-juices,Laving her hands in the pure sluicesWhere rainbows are dissolved.Beauty shall view herself in pools of amber sheenDappled with peacock-tints from the green screenThat mingles liquid light with liquid shadow.Beauty shall breathe the fairy hushWith the chill orchids in their cells of shade,And hear the invocation of the thrushThat calls the stars into their heaven,And after evenBeauty shall take the night into her soul.When the thrill voice goes crying through the wood,(Oh, Beauty, Beauty!)Troubling the solitudeWith echoes from the lonely world,Beauty will tremble like a cloistered thingThat hears temptation in the outlands singing,Will steel her dedicated heart and breatheInto her inner ear to firm her vow: --"Let me restore the soul that ye have marred.O mortals, cry no more on Beauty,Leave me alone, lone mortals,Until my shaken soul comes to its own,Lone mortals, leave me alone!"(Oh Beauty, Beauty, Beauty!)All the dim wood is silent as a dreamThat dreams of silence.